A cool way to remove paint and corrosion with lasers

[aviatoreb]

Would this work?

 

[Hank]

Looks possible to do an entire aircraft, but S . L . O . W .

I have to wonder how heavy the thing is, like when doing the belly, bottom side of the wings and tail, etc., and how well it handles multiple layers of paint [stripes, N numbers, etc.].

Then there is the cost question--what does this thing cost to purchase, to operate? Interesting, though.

[kerry]

Very cool.  I wonder If I can pick one up at Harbor Freight. lol

[Cyril Gibb]

Looks great, but a bit pricey at a few $100K depending on power level.  It could eliminate all the issues with current paint removal chemicals, if it worked on aluminum and didn't damage or remove the alclad layer.  It looks like it would take a few days which ain't bad 'cause it would be immediately available to prepare/paint.

[Hank]

Not available for sale to private persons. Units start at $50,000 USD for low power systems; the one shown above is high power.

[aviatoreb]

The cost of 50k or 100k seems more like an issue of low production.  If it became popular I bet the price would drop a lot to the point it would be well worth it for a paint shop to carry.  Seems like it could be a great way for stripping in the near future.  But also for corrosion mitigation.

[N201MKTurbo]

I like it, it looks dangerous. It has to be to work.

Its weird that the light looks white. Lasers don't make white. There are lasers that make red, green and blue that you can combine to get white, but that seems like a lot of trouble to clean metal. 

I will have to look up the patent.

[carusoam]

Who volunteered to be first to put their hands under the high powered laser?

Best regards,

-a-

[Hank]

16 minutes ago, carusoam said:

Who volunteered to be first to put their hands under the high powered laser?

Best regards,

-a-

I'll volunteer to run the laser, but my hands will stay well behind the lens!

[mooniac15u]

9 hours ago, N201MKTurbo said:

I like it, it looks dangerous. It has to be to work.

Its weird that the light looks white. Lasers don't make white. There are lasers that make red, green and blue that you can combine to get white, but that seems like a lot of trouble to clean metal. 

I will have to look up the patent.

Not that they are using a white LASER in this application but white LASERs do exist. 

http://www.nature.com/nnano/journal/v10/n9/full/nnano.2015.149.html

[gsxrpilot]

I'll take a low powered one to take the bugs off the leading edges.

[Chocks]

That video shows the 1000w laser, and it's price tag is just a hair over one-half million dollars. And you should see the GPU system that it comes with! I don't think it would fit on a small trailer!  hehe

Edited March 28, 2016 by FlyingSchmidt

[chrisk]

6 hours ago, mooniac15u said:

Not that they are using a white LASER in this application but white LASERs do exist. 

http://www.nature.com/nnano/journal/v10/n9/full/nnano.2015.149.html

Sort of true.  It's 3 resonating cavities in the same device.  As a gross simplification, it is a Red, Blue, and Green laser "glued" together, where the "glue" is how the material is deposited.  Still very cool, but not exactly full spectrum white light.   

[Browncbr1]

they put the video in fast forward too... no telling how slow it actually is.. 

like everything else, eventually, they will make it more compact and accessible to more markets like computers and other electronics have done over the years... very cool

[chrisk]

16 hours ago, N201MKTurbo said:

I like it, it looks dangerous. It has to be to work.

Its weird that the light looks white. Lasers don't make white. There are lasers that make red, green and blue that you can combine to get white, but that seems like a lot of trouble to clean metal. 

I will have to look up the patent.

I'll take a guess.   It could be invisible to the eye, but picked up by the camera.   And if the power is quite strong, it could saturate the CCD and make it look white.  --Kind of like a laser pointer to the eye looks white.  (not something to try)

[aviatoreb]

All I know is when I was like 12 years old, I was so in love with the concept of lasers. And I was looking at some catalogue of "home lasers" that were boxes, that cost like 2000 dollars in then dollars.  By the time I graduated from grad school, my wife got me a laser pointer, and I was amazed.  It was a low powered red laser that cost about 200 dollars and it was so compact.  Now lasers are everywhere and something BETTER than either of the above to costs pennies and literally the case and battery cost more.

I bet this forefront technology will become available.

[mooniac15u]

59 minutes ago, chrisk said:

Sort of true.  It's 3 resonating cavities in the same device.  As a gross simplification, it is a Red, Blue, and Green laser "glued" together, where the "glue" is how the material is deposited.  Still very cool, but not exactly full spectrum white light.   

There are very few things that emit full spectrum white light. This device simultaneously lases at multiple wavelengths which effectively creates a relatively broad spectrum output that is visually identifiable as white.  The point was that this is substantially different from previous devices that had to merge separate beams. 

[N201MKTurbo]

Here are a couple of jobs in our shop right now:

A 3KW laser and power supply.

A lab system with two scan heads (can't show you that actually)

[1964-M20E]

neat  I'll take one for the house.

 

Yes it would be nice to see in real time just how fast it really is.